Chapter 74

Clare posted two scouts and sent another pair on opposite orbit patrols and once notified there were no other craft in the vicinity, powered "Sundowner" to the hyper. Again she dispatched scouts to investigate above the layer before translating.

Once through, the crew were stood down to normal duties.

The crew soon wished they were back at departure stations as the output from Shirley Wood's planning was made known.

PE and unarmed combat training — the only humans on board excused were the duty watch and the Widow Smeaton. The duty watch had a later time allocated.

Six of the Gennies were sent to Dusty Miller's tender mercies to be trained in HACS and six of the trainees plus the remaining Gennies were exposed to Lt Dorothy Ember for spacer training which included instruction in the engine room. Forsome and Secombe Engineer were included in the spacer training and to their complete horror they couldn't persuade Orville to spring them from durance vile.

The Engineers were soon counting their blessings as periodically those officers not involved specifically in spacer training and the remaining Sundowners were assembled in the space of C aft to begin Marine training and that, they were excused. Individual weapons simulators were brought out for practice on a virtual known distance range and later on virtual 50m and 25 m snap silhouette target ranges. Fire and movement over both virtual terrain and built up areas was practised. Entry and exit procedures were practised in 737.

The Tulips not involved in spacer training were kept occupied with bridge exercises where the absent Tulips had to be covered by those available.

Despite muttered aspersions about what the genetic engineers had done to Shirley's ancestors' genes, all the Sundowners attended second dog seminars given for the officers. The Dahlgrens attended as did the resident constructs — Derrin eavesdropped and used Art's inbuilt vid camera. The explanation was simplicity itself. Shirley was the only person on "Sundowner" who had been involved in multiple ship actions. Her discussions on the mind sets necessary, the preparation of individuals and of vessels, the pre-planning and exercising were detailed and thorough. Her descriptions of the chaos of battle made evident the importance of training and procedures to keep units functioning coherently despite the total breakdown of plans.

Shirley stressed the importance of the CIC team and the absolute necessity of timely and correct information to fight the battle happening now. And this meant that unglamorous facility, COMS, was critical and it behoved every member of the CIC / bridge team to be competent and conversant with both the internal and external com systems.

Shirley was approaching quiet contentedness at the progress of her students but she was a driven woman. These people would receive the best possible training so that should ever disaster befall them, they would have the instinctive actions ingrained.

She no longer suffered the nightmares and horrendous flashbacks arising out of the memories of fighting for the survival of her stricken cruiser and crew but the memories themselves would never leave her. She had received most help from the constructs and she rationalised this as being that they were not judgemental — that did not mean that they were not critical but the dispassion did not make her fear their opinions. It did escape her that another reason for her improvement was the restoration of her self confidence in herself and the job she was doing.

Starfall at Sol required full watches and training was wound back in intensity. It was not until berthing at the USN Station "Azores" that Clare relaxed. Sort of. Three scouts brooded alongside navigation bouys to give early warning. The bridge was staffed by a steaming watch with all modalities live to the seats. The fission piles' rods were not inserted — this did not shorten the life cycle of the piles as the material still decayed but the energy from the radiation had to be removed so there was an effect upon the intermediary plants as they were kept powered up. (To those who did just happen to pass by and who just happened to look out of idle interest, "Sundowner" had that certain glow.) As word spread of the changes to "Sundowner", the tourist traffic increased until the Harbourmaster put a stop to it — he wasn't having clowns swanning through his bailiwick making nuisances of themselves and endangering working stiffs.

The Dahlgrens were fare welled / welcomed home by a function in New Harriers attended by friends old and new. A few, like TJ Strathlawn and Percy Gantry, noted the abstinence of the Sundowners for future reference. The political brass — there wasn't any other kind — of the USN attended and they and their aides made no attempt to inspect "Sundowner" for themselves. Middle rank USW bureaucrats noted which of their opposite numbers from the Embassies attended. A socially successful function but not one which laid any foundation for later contacts.

Clare made her number with the USW mapping departments and gave a summary of the changes noted for entry into the "Pilot".

TJ spent a watch with the USN intel chief and was most discouraged. That chief was a personal choice of the USW bureaucrats and had no interest in life other than telling his superiors just what they wanted to hear.

Upon his return to "Sundowner", TJ commed John Dahlgren to pass on a friendly warning and was surprised that John was visiting his family in mid west Noramcon, having dropped in his report and being sent on accumulated leave. John did express some concern that nobody in the USN seemed to be interested that a vicious war was raging in the south galaxy except for almost idle speculation about the fate of New Liege as some reports indicated the Eridani Accords might have been broken. TJ did a double think when it sank in that John's report had already been submitted. In answer, John's features assumed a most innocent expression as if testing that things did not melt in his mouth and he said that he merely submitted a travelogue of matters after he departed Harbouria. He did mention the ambush (see attached tapes) and that he had obtained a tape of the Mountserrat Home Space Battle (also attached for interest). John had formed an opinion in the short contact with his new office that he would hear nothing more of the report.

...

There existed a trio of men who were interested in the tale TJ had to tell. Sir Peter Brakeman had one of his cousins hire a flivver and park it on his estate — Peter's estate that is — near a barn. Three nondescript air cars were parked in the barn while the occupants used the flivver to space to "Sundowner". TJ manned the boat bay controls and brought the flivver into the cleared boat bay. The port personal lift moved them to A where Clare and Morg had organised the coffee, munchies and the projectors. The Club was sealed off as an additional precaution.

The Noramcon CNO bitterly informed them that he would be retired at the instigation of the USW Senate's intervention in Noramcon politics. The announcement would be made in nine weeks time when the Noramcon Senate reconvened and the name submitted for nomination. His replacement was "a comer" in the USW bureaucracy who required time in high naval command for advancement in the United Solarian Navy. It was a disaster for the Noramcon Navy because of the new builds being at the decision stage to proceed or cut rope. CNO stated categorically the building programme would be gutted to the local politicians' delight.

Morg ran the facts through his mental calculator,

"If Chencon continues with its building programme, that puts them larger than your combined totals."

Enklan nodded

"Of a certaintity. Russiberia and we were relying on the Yanks to modernise and increase their fleet size. We can't afford to lay down any more hulls. We have been listening to Strathlawn so we've got new modern hulls and we are upgrading as quickly as we can but there is a definite limit what our countries can afford. The Chencon wealth also means they control the USW Senate. My intel gremlins are telling me that Chencon is eyeing off eastern Russiberia as they are under tremendous population pressure — have been since the Supersoldier Wars but it's got worse over the past century. One of our attaches in Shangdou got this early this year — it's a breakdown of their fleets and what they will be in two years."

The holo bloomed as the chip was inserted. The three Sundowners studied the figures and flicked to the specifications from time to time.

"TJ? Morg? Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Probably!" Morg replied. TJ produced a chip,

"This was in the banks when we arrived and I only had a good look at it this morning..." He looked at the Triumvirate " ... there has been colossal destruction of naval forces in the south. The Mounties and the Peeps have virtually bashed each other to a standstill. Let me show you..."

The Home Space vid formed.

" ... I'm going to speed this up so I can show you the results. We'll come back to the tactical and weaponry later...

As you can see, the Mounties lost Home and Third fleets; Eighth has been building slowly following the disaster visited on the RMN four years ago. Their new builds are starting to leave the yards but it will take another year before the first reaches service. At this point all they've got is about forty SDs and some light stuff about Mountserrat and a BC squadron with support in the southwest...

That BC task group will hand Frontier Fleet their heads if Fleet does something stupid; the admiral is Hawkins and while she has always been in Cunningham's shadow, she is good; very good...

The Harbourian losses at Home Space were total; everything captured or destroyed except for a couple of cruisers and a DD squadron. But the Peeps still had a Home Fleet — nothing else mind, but still a large home fleet..."

TJ put up the vid of the scouts' reconnaissance of New Liege.

"That would be a formidable opponent" remarked Russiberia

TJ continued

" ... and their CNO is as good as the Cunningham femme."

Noramcon took up that point

"I've studied all the tapes you got for us TJ and I am truly concerned by the quality of the Commanders on both sides of that war. They are tough, battle hardened, experienced officers and we haven't anybody in our services who have ever seen a laser fired in anger. And the fire power available! Only our most modern builds would even have a chance. With what they have, Harbouria would just walk all over us."

"Not gonna happen" TJ pointed out. "There was a very small unit in the Mounty order of battle called 119 (Reinforced) Squadron. Sort of a naval bodyguard to the Queen under the command of a very unusual fellow. He's actually a competitor of ours. Bright chap called "Aggy" McCock. He took this (and showed the holo of 119 at rest in Settlement) plus a CHAC and a missile replenishment ship and took that out. The lot of it — and only lost two HACs I believe. Some three months after that, the Queen sacked him, and his crews went with him almost to a spacer — about a handful remained, mainly wives of RMN personnel...

So as a result all there is in the south is whatever Harbouria can assemble from its outer systems, Cunningham's Eighth Fleet and Hawkins' task group plus Frontier Fleet and for the RMN, Frontier Fleet just provides targets...

There isn't anything in Frontier Fleet that can stand up to the Chencons even if the rest of the Solarian nations wake up. The balance of power no longer exists...

I don't think it is too farfetched to say that the galaxy is the Chencons for the taking."

"And that's not a very pleasant thought" the Enklander observed. "Couldn't Cunningham do a Cunningham on them? Look what she achieved at Home Space."

"There is a certain quality about quantity" Morg answered. "Some Old Earth general said it — I don't recall who. Take a look at the tactical situation at Home Space (Morg recovered that vid). The first Peep Group is taking a right pounding while it hands the Mounty Home Fleet its head but it is still a fighting force when Third Fleet arrives. Home and Third are armed with last generation MDMs but don't have the Zeus missile system or whatever its called; but even those missiles are better than the Peeps and the control system is far better. Third is pinned by engagement and that second Peep force drops out of hyper behind them; Third is damaged and by this time the first Peep force and Mounty Home Fleet are nearly ineffective. The second Peep fleet is slightly larger than Third but if Third could have disengaged they'd have taken the Peeps in detail. A masterful plan brilliantly executed and it was sheer joss that it didn't succeed. It might have gone the other way if Eight had come through before Third — I've been wargaming that scenario with TJ ever since we left Mounty space and the best we can come up with is a tactical defeat for both but that would still be a strategic victory for the Peeps. As long as that Force existed in New Liege, that is...

You have an idea of what both side's missiles can do. Now, take a closer look at Cunningham in Eight with the new system. The weapon missiles are somewhat less powerful than the older MDMs but are each inherently better controlled. There remain about eighty basically undamaged Peep SDs in that Peep second force. You can examine the salvo size fired by D'Orville from the Mounty Home Fleet later but accept it from me that Cunningham's total was only a quarter of that; she had half the number of ships, and she didn't have time to flush more out of her magazines. She took only enough time to deploy enough to take out that second force's effectives. Plus a token salvo into the first fleet; and first fleet by this time was a broken force. The Peeps couldn't close the range on Eight as both Peep fleets were still pinned in combat and Cunningham would never have let them pin her; she could stand off with the better missile control and pick them off...